


15 - Into the Unknown

by VickeyStar



Series: Whumptober 2020 [15]
Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Juliet Higgins Whump, Supernatural Elements, Whumptober 2020, based off of a real ghost in hawaii
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:06:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VickeyStar/pseuds/VickeyStar
Summary: She’s starting to think they should take Halloween off, with the strange cases that they tend to get.Possession | Magical Healing | Science Gone Wrong
Relationships: Juliet Higgins & Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV
Series: Whumptober 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946791
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	15 - Into the Unknown

She’s starting to think they should take Halloween off, with the strange cases that they tend to get.

Juliet sighs, accepting the backpack Thomas hands her and putting it in the footspace of the passenger’s seat as they exit the Ferrari, looking around Wahiawa.

They’ve taken the case from a couple of teenagers, for once being paid in cash, a request to stay overnight in this town between the two volcanoes, trying to find a ghost.

“Who are we looking for, again?” Juliet asks, looking around to see the town’s welcoming sign.

Thomas pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket, unfolding it to read his notes.

“The Green Lady, said to be covered in moss and green mold, seen around the town. Most people have apparently seen her around the Botanical Garden, but others have said she’s at the elementary school, with scales, jagged teeth, and seaweed for hair.”

Juliet frowns, pulling out her phone and doing a quick search through the research they’ve already done.

“And nobody blames the science building, located near the garden?”

Thomas shrugs.

“That’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it?”

Juliet sighs, annoyedly putting her phone back to save the battery as the sun moves across the sky.

“So what’s the plan?” Juliet asks, turning to face him.

He shrugs.

“I say we grab some lunch, check out the science area, then split up, one of us goes to the elementary school, the other takes a walk in a garden all night, grab dinner along the way.”

She takes a moment, surprised at how prepared he is for this.

“You’re excited for this, aren’t you?”

He gives her a wide eyed look, and any attempt to deny the claim is immediately stopped by the memory of the two of them back at Robin’s Nest, Thomas giving her a thorough explanation and instructions on the equipment he’d somehow found and how to use it before they came out here.

He finally sighs in defeat.

“Yeah, but c’mon, can you blame me? We’re going _ghost hunting_!”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes, simply lifting an eyebrow.

“If this turns out to be nothing, you owe me.”

He smirks, hefting a duffle bag onto his shoulder.

“This’ll be fun and you _know_ it.”

~*~

They grab lunch at the local Domino’s, Juliet pulling up a map of the town.

“Why would she show up in two places so far away from each other?” Juliet asks, dubiously taking a bite of her pizza.

Thomas shrugs.

“I don’t know, but the basic story is that she’s looking for her kid, and she’ll steal any kids she comes across.”

Juliet frowns.

“How far back in the past do the sightings go?”

Thomas puts down his pizza crust, pulling out one of the tablets he’d borrowed from her.

“There isn’t an exact date for the latest sighting, but some people say it’s similar to a Kappa, a Japanese creature who steals and eats children, seen in the nineteen-eighties.”

She lifts an eyebrow, wondering the relevance, even knowing the similarities.

“There’s another theory, this one of her being a regular mom who took her kids to the garden a lot. It’s theorized that they’d go through the gulch to avoid the bridge, cuz’ the mom didn’t want her kids hit by a car. At some point, the kids got separated from their mom, and she wasn’t able to get help finding her kids, so she disappeared into the gulch. They say the way to tell if she’s near is the scent, the smell of rotting plants.”

Juliet nods, discretely putting the last slice back down on her plate, not complaining as he takes it and digs in.

She knows he packed snacks in their bags, anyways.

“I’ll take the school, you can check out the bridge, after we investigate the lab,” she decides, gathering the remains of their meal to be properly disposed of.

Thomas shrugs agreeably, making sure they still have their supplies as they drive away.

~*~

“We really just analyze soil and plant life, here. Nothing really dangerous,” the scientist explains, giving the two investigators a quick tour.

“No toxic plants or gasses in the surrounding area? Nothing that can cause hallucinations, or anything?” Juliet asks, taking notes while occasionally slapping Thomas’s hands to keep him from touching things.

The scientist frowns, considering.

“Well, there used to be some strange gasses on the surface of the ground, but we’ve been clearing the area out for years, and while these build-ups occasionally pop up here and there in the garden, but they’re easily predicted and dealt with. They don’t really pose a threat to anyone.”

Juliet notes this down, asking for specifics and making a plan to do further research on these gasses, later.

Something to do while waiting for a nonexistent ghost, she imagines.

They stick around a bit, Thomas getting a protection charm from a superstitious scientist’s assistant, before gathering their things and splitting up to go investigate their areas.

~*~

She spends five minutes talking to the security guard, because apparently Thomas had planned so far ahead as to clear her presence there with the locals, before she wanders around the hot jungle.

She doesn’t get too far away from the elementary school, keeping the lights of the main office visible as she explores, carrying unnecessary supplies to hunt a ghost that she doesn’t believe is real.

There’s no sense in getting lost in the jungle, too.

She’s wandering around the edge of the jungle, keeping a bored eye on the lights of the small handheld equipment Thomas had given her, when she smells it.

It’s a wretched scent, like rotted plants but _worse_.

She scrunches up her nose, a deep certainty in her chest as she knows she’ll have to follow the scent deeper into the jungle.

Juliet thinks better of taking a deep breath, instead simply breathing normally to try to acclimate to the smell as she goes.

The ground is uneven, as she continues to go through the jungle, the scent getting stronger as she goes.

She goes through the vines and leaves, the scent almost overpowering at this point, and the ground grows more and more uneven, like it’s moving, under her feet.

She walks further, not noticing when she steps on a certain spot, and the ground seems to deflate.

She falls over, head landing on a tree root as she gets dazed.

Her eyes barely open, she could _swear_ she sees a woman, approaching her.

~*~

He’s been here all night, and he’s actually disappointed that nothing’s come of it.

Checking the time to see that it’s three thirty in the morning, he’s about to call Juliet and call it quits when he sees her, in the gulch near the bridge, just _standing_ there.

“Juliet?” He calls out, approaching.

She doesn’t respond, simply staring across the gulch as he approaches her from the side.

A flash of panic fills him when he spots the red on her head, blood slowly oozing from a bump on her head.

“Juliet, are you alright?” He asks, rapidly approaching and grabbing her shoulder as he holds his flashlight to her head, avoiding shining it in her eyes.

They have an eerie glow to them anyways, and he checks her head over.

“Juliet, what’s wrong? What happened?”

He stares into her eyes after a moment, ignoring the eerie look and trying to reach her.

“Juliet?”

He cradles her head, partially looking for another head injury, partially trying to get her gaze on him.

If the small pendant on his protection charm brushes against her cheek, he doesn’t notice.

He _does_ notice the shudder go through her, as she flinches back and looks around, suddenly shaking.

“Juliet?”

She meets his eyes, confused.

“You okay?”

She takes a moment, before she nods.

“I tripped, hit my head.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

She frowns, glancing around.

“I think I have a concussion.”

He nods, concerned as he leads her out of the gulch and toward the car, parked near the bridge.

“The lab is closer than the hospital. Think they’ll still be there?”

It’s a moot question, Juliet too dazed to listen or give any realistic answer.

He gets her settled into the car, Juliet actively trying not to fall asleep, and he’s quick to drive.

~*~

“Get her in here,” the same scientist commands, immediately grabbing a first aid kit as Thomas leads Juliet toward a chair.

“You’re lucky I was here, I’ve been waiting on a soil test all night. Though, you really should take her to a hospital, after this.”

The scientist pauses.

“Do you smell that?”

Thomas sniffs, nose finally recognizing the strange scent he’s been smelling since he found Juliet.

“Is that rotting plants?”

The scientist spares a glance toward the plants around them, before focusing on his friend.

“She smells like rotting plants.”

Thomas can’t help but think of the Green Lady.

The scientist’s eyes light up in understanding.

“She must’ve found one of the pockets.”

Thomas pauses his train of thought.

“What do you mean?”

The scientist looks at him, grabbing a small oxygen tank and mask, quickly slipping it over Juliet’s face.

“The gasses I mentioned, before. It’s kind of like a bubble, just underneath the surface of the ground. She must’ve found one, and it must’ve popped, causing her to fall and hit her head.”

Thomas gives the scientist a dry look.

“Not a threat to anyone, huh.”

A blush spreads on the scientist’s cheeks, and he quickly focuses on the cut on Juliet’s head.

“I don’t think it needs stitches, and I assume you know how to handle a concussion. She’ll need to clean the wound frequently, and she’ll get some pretty intense headaches, until it’s fully healed.”

Thomas simply nods, helping a lightheaded Juliet to her feet as they go to leave.

“You may want to warn people about the gas, if these pockets are that dangerous.”

The scientist nods, already pulling up a word document on his computer to draft a notice.

~*~

They get home at six in the morning, after Thomas leaves a message that explains to the teenagers that the natural gasses caused the smell, and the pockets could’ve caused unstable ground and therefore, concussions that led to hallucinations.

He leads Juliet to her room, letting her shower in her in-suite bathroom before making sure she gets settled into bed as he sits in the desk chair next to her bed.

He sets a timer, and thinks over their case.

The one thing that doesn’t add up, is how Juliet got to him.

The garden and bridge area are a distance away from the elementary school, he knows, and while it isn’t impossible to walk that distance in a night, with the fact that she was injured and going through the jungle at night don’t really make it a plausible thing.

He thinks back to the eerie look in her eyes, fingers subconsciously rubbing the protection charm on his wrist.

His eyes catch it as he pauses, looking at the small carving on a string.

_Is it possible?_

He shakes his head dismissively.

_No way._

He thinks it over more, concernedly looking at his partner.

_Unless…_

His lips purse, and he’s already mentally drafting an email to get another protection charm to give to her.

edn

**Author's Note:**

> The Green Lady ghost is supposedly a real ghost story, in a real town between two volcanoes in hawaii. We took liberties about the locations of places, though the elementary school and garden are honestly a bit of a distance away from each other.  
> (The science building isn't real, as far as we know, neither are the natural gas pockets in that area. These are both for storytelling, trying to work in the Science Gone Wrong part of the prompt.)  
> (Also yes, the ghost totally saved Juliet by possessing her we don't make the rules the ghost is a good person in this story.)  
> Please let us know if we pulled the three different prompts together in a way that makes sense?  
> Hope y'all enjoyed!  
> ~ Sleef/Vic


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